Dether (DTR) - BREAKING BARRIERS TO ETHEREUM MASS ADOPTION

WHAT IS DETHER?

Dether provides a decentralized peer-to-peer ether network that enables anyone on Earth to buy ether withcash and spend it at physical stores nearby. No bank account is needed, just a mobile phone with internetaccess. Our belief is that the beauty and power of the Ethereum technology should be easily accessible toall.We’ve decided to put all of our energy and that of the Ethereum community into helping us build the firsttrustless solution that will allow anyone to be able to interact with the Ethereum blockchain no matter whoyou are, where you are, and without the need for a middleman.

BREAKING BARRIERS TO ETHEREUM MASS ADOPTION

As Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned the first blockchain use case as a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system,”people all over the globe have been increasingly using not only bitcoin, but also cryptocurrency, as a meansof payment.With cryptocurrency you can now:Buy a Subway sandwich in Buenos Aires.Buy a painting in Paris.Pay your children’s tuition fees in New York City.Buy a deli sandwich in Melbourne.Buy a camera in Tokyo.And that’s just the beginning.In this context, mobile phones are the new banks. And cryptocurrency is the new money. That’s the reasonwe’ve also shaped the Dether map as a decentralized solution for any physical store willing to accept etheras a means of payment.No credit or debit card is needed to spend ether at physical stores.

CUTTING-EDGE APP FOR ETHEREUM MASS ADOPTION

Dether is the world’s first peer-to-peer ether network. It enables anyone who has a smartphone to buy andsell ether using cash and spend it at physical stores listed on the Dether map.Dether creates a worldwide ecosystem of ether buyers, sellers and physical stores willing to trade etherfor fiat cash and accept it as a means of payment. Dether provides the infrastructure for people to embraceEthereum technology in their everyday lives. Dether is available on any smartphone. No bank account isneeded to buy and sell ether. No credit or debit card is needed to spend ether at physical stores.

BUY AND SELL ETHER. ANYWHERE. ANYTIME. WITH CASH.

Dether offers the unique ability to let anyone safely buy and sell ether anywhere, anytime, with cash.Because we believe that Ethereum won’t know mass adoption until it’s easily and quickly accessible toanyone on Earth, we decided to create the first Dapp that brings the key solution in order to interact withthe Ethereum blockchain from anywhere in the world.

• The fastest and easiest way for anyone to buy ether

Dether offers the unique opportunity to have access to ether withinminutes by using a phone and spending cash.Users are able to discover ether sellers, called tellers, near them onthe Dether map, their ETH/fiat rate, the fees that they take, and chatanonymously with them. Buyers are free to engage a conversationwith the seller they want to trade with in order to agree on the tradingconditions and the meeting point to exchange ether for cash.Any individual that has cash is able to buy ether on Dether. Cash is usedin all countries across the globe whether or not a person is unbanked.And the adoption of smartphones is increasing all over the world. At thecrossroads of cash usage and increasing smartphone adoption is Dether.Its unique solution gives anyone the opportunity to access ether, andthus Ethereum blockchain, by spending cash. Dether aims at unleashingthe potential of Ethereum technology by providing a quick, easy andsecure gateway to the decentralized future.

• A cross-border market for ether tellersAny ether owner can officially become a seller on Dether and benefit from a new, profitable activity.Ether sellers can now become mobile “PTM” (People Teller Machine) by being on the Dether map and sellingether for fiat currency anywhere in the world at any time. Sellers are free to set up their own ETH/fiat rateand their own fees.

USE YOUR ETHER IN PHYSICAL STORES ALL OVER THE WORLD

• Spend ether at local stores, shops and businessesOn Dether, users discover physical stores near them that accept ether.As Ethereum popularity is quickly increasing throughout the world,more and more businesses are accepting ether.Today, buying a Subway sandwich in Buenos Aires with cryptocurrency,a deli sandwich in Melbourne or a camera in Japan, is now possible.Tomorrow, the Dether map will give everyone the opportunity todiscover all of the places nearby where ether is accepted.

Dether users are able to discover shops near them that:- accept ether as a means of payment- are willing to buy or sell ether for cashUsers are able to spend their ether without the need for a bank account or a credit/debit card. For specificneeds, users are able to type the kind of physical stores they are looking for (e.g.: “restaurant”) in their cityto see which ones are accepting ether.• Adding their own shops to the Dether map and expanding their businessesShop owners can let the whole world know that they’re now accepting ether! As the number of etherbuyers and tellers that use the Dether map will grow rapidly, physical stores are also able to be part of theecosystem by being listed on the Dether map.Thanks to an auction mechanism, shops will compete with other businesses nearby for better visibility onthe Dether map. Similarly, like on any search engine or promotional marketplace, physical stores are able tobet on specific key words and expressions to be more visible to Dether users on the map.In addition, Dether will offer a complete back-office system to any shop wishing to accept ether, in order tomanage their liquidity and keep up with cryptocurrency fluctuations, thus having the possibility to directlyconvert received ether into fiat currency.

ÐTR TOKEN

In order to embrace our vision of creating the world’s first decentralized application for ether buyers, sellersand physical shops, Dether introduces the ÐTR token.

1 WHAT IS THE ÐTR TOKEN?

ÐTR is the ERC20 token that allows people from all over the world to participate in Dether’s development.Dether proposes a freemium model, where users are incentivized to use ÐTR tokens to unlock additionalfeatures on Dether as a seller or a physical shop and have more visibility on the Dether map. Moreover,Dether proposes a model where the quantity of ÐTR in circulation will be deflationist throughout timethanks to the ÐTR Token Buyback Program.

2 WHY LAUNCH THE ÐTR TOKEN?

Dether relies on ÐTR token holders for its future development. ÐTR tokens will enable the Dether ecosystemto grow.ÐTR tokens serve two main goals:• ÐTR is the key token needed to unlock additional features and ensure better visibility on the Dethermap. As a teller or a physical store, staking ÐTR tokens is required in order to increase his or hervisibility on the Dether map to buyers. When multiple sellers or physical shops who have ÐTR tokensare competing for a trading zone on the Dether’s map, an auction system chooses the winner for acertain period of time.• Launch a buyback program of ÐTR tokens in order to decrease the quantity of ÐTR tokens available onpublic markets over time as Dether’s success worldwide increases and add liquidity to the market.

3. USING ÐTR TOKENS FOR VISIBILITY ON THE DETHER MAP AND ZONE INDEXING SYSTEM

Using ÐTR tokens in the Dether app will allow tellers and physical shops to have better visibility. They aregiven the possibility of owning a zone through an auction system.The Dether map will be divided into small areas of square meters (zone indexing system) in order to preciselylocate each area on Earth. Therefore, it will be possible to identify and categorize each crypto-relatedservice. In order to increase accuracy and avoid spam, different referencing systems will be available: oneorganic, and one premium system accessible through the ÐTR token.The Dether map aims at referencing the worldwide ecosystem of ether sellers (called tellers) and physicalstores. Therefore, there are two types of ether seller entities on the app: tellers and physical shops. Each ofthem has their own registration process and a user cycle.Tellers: a teller represents a legal entity (a human being, firm etc.) willing to sell ether at a given price andin accordance with the legal limitations of the country from which he or she operates.

Physical stores: A physical store represents a legal entity registered in its country, willing to be visible onthe Dether map as a store accepting ether as a means of payment. Said store will also be able to broadcastcommercial advertisements regarding its location.

Organic indexing system• For tellers: The more a teller trades, the greater organic visibility they will have on the Dether map.The radius of his trading location point will expand, as well as his visibility on different zoom views on theDether map.• For shops: Shops are organically visible through keyword searches, according to the payments theyhave received.5.3.2 Premium indexing systemDirectly linked to the zoning system, tellers and shops have the ability to own a zone in which they haveexclusive visibility.• For tellers: Tellers will have exclusivity if they own a zone. All of the other tellers on that zone willbe invisible.• For shops: If a shop owns a zone, it has exclusivity on said zone. All of the other shops around willonly be visible on the smallest zoom level, with limited information shown. Once a sufficient number ofphysical stores are listed, Dether will set up a keyword system, enabling every physical store to add “tags”that match the business’s description. For competitive areas, a keyword auction system will be set up for agiven geographical area. Thus, physical stores will be able to appear in priority over a given area, accordingto the keywords entered by users in the search bar of the Dether map.How will the auction system work? An entity opens a bid for an area by making a deposit. For the next24 hours, any other entity can bid to appear on this area. After 24 hours, the entity that made the largestdeposit takes possession of the area. At any time, an entity may reopen an auction to take possession ofthe zone. From then on, entities have 24 hours to bid to appear on this area. In the meantime, the currentowner of the area keeps it until the auction is over. A monthly fee between 0.05% and 0.1% of the depositwill be taken in order to feed the ÐTR Buyback Program Fund, which intends to constantly buy ÐTR tokensback and burn them.

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

CURRENT STATE

2017 Q1Proof-of-concept• Participation in the Merkle Week Hackathon in Paris• Development, smart contract, and wireframes design• Proof-of-concept development that enables users to register as a seller on a map, chat with buyers andtrade• User tests• Live demo and pitch in front of the jury• First prize winner

September 2017Beta version• Interface: progressive app available on any smartphone• Smart contract:◊ smart contract enabling tellers to register a location point on Dether map◊ availability button for tellers to show buyers when they are available for trades• Wallet: light wallet with encrypted private key on the device• Peer-to-peer messaging: encrypted third party messaging (ex: Telegram)• Map: external provider• Ethereum provider: Infura

ÐTR TOKENS PROJECTIONS

Crowdsale: 52%Tokens will be directly distributed to contributors as soon as the crowdsale ends.Founders, team & early contributors: 15%Tokens for the team members, as well the founders, will be vested for 2 years with a 6-month releaseprogram. Tokens for early contributors will be vested for 6 months.Bounty: 3%:Participants of the bounty program will receive their tokens as soon as the crowdsale ends.Reserve for future usage: 30%Tokens will be locked for 2 years. After that, tokens will either be progressively reserved for futuredevelopments, distributed every 6 months for 4 years and/or they will be progressively burnt according tothe amount of tokens previously bought and burnt. Distribution decisions will always be made in regardsto the revenue generated.

COSTS AND FUNDING BREAKDOWN

Funds raised during the crowdsale will cover Dether’s development and its operational costs. Distributionwill include: core development, operational, marketing, communication and business development, legal andcompliance.

Core development by Dether’s team – 40%

The technology and the solution will be developed by Dether’s team. Therefore, the most important costsection will be dedicated to recruiting the best team members over the next five years.Core development will involve the development of the technology as described in this document. Thisincludes the entirety of the developments detailed in the roadmap towards a fully decentralized mobilesolution that enables peer-to-peer ether trading and payment.

Operational – 20%

This covers the necessary costs incurred for a functional system. This includes: hosting and infrastructurecosts, offices, daily operations, indirect employment-related costs, management and other related expenses.Communication, marketing and business development – 25%Communication costs will be used to make Dether visible in regions where the market is most profitableand where it is needed the most.Marketing and business development costs will be used for partnerships with big retailers and internationalphysical stores and companies that will accept ether as a means of payment and/or operate fiat/etherexchange.

Legal and compliance – 15%

Legal and compliance costs will be associated with the development of Dether’s decentralized andinternational solution. Legal costs might vary from region to region regarding KYC and AML regulation, fiatto cryptocurrency exchange, and paying in ether at physical stores. Regulatory approvals may be requiredin some regions, although our goal is to maintain privacy protection, peer-to-peer trading and the fightagainst censorship for our users from all over the world.

Links:

Dether Development Transparency — Part 1

Unveiling Dether’s P2P network of Ether traders and shops.

This blog post is the first in a series of articles describing the technical choices of Dether,
and our long term vision. In this first article, we will answer all the
major questions we’ve received up until now about our major choices
thus far.

1/ Why Ethereum?

People
often ask us why we’ve chosen to help cryptocurrency reach mass
adoption using Ethereum and not the first cryptocurrency (in term of
marketcap) which is Bitcoin. There are different reasons for that.

The
first is that today, Ethereum is the most reliable blockchain for smart
contracts. And this is crucial as we see Dether and its protocol to be
fully decentralized, and reachable everywhere by everyone. Also, as true
Ethereum believers, we strongly believe there will be a growing demand
for an easy access to ether, and also tokens. Moreover, ether can be an
easy entry to get other cryptocurrency in general, as in most exchanges,
ETH is paired directly with all other major cryptocurrency.

2/ Why do you have a token instead of taking a fee?

Having
an easy access to get ether using cash is a need shared by a lot of
decentralized applications (Dapps). We have verified this assertion
after the launch of Dether’s alpha, as we have been contacted by many
teams working on Dapps. That’s the reason why Dether will have an API to
enable an easy access to all information we have gathered.

Using
a private paying API through Ethereum makes no sense. However, it makes
more sense to develop a protocol based on a token instead of a
centralized application taking fees.

In
order to succeed in creating a reliable protocol with an incentive for
using it, you need your own token to keep and share the value created in
your ecosystem.

The
drawback of having a token is that you create friction and add hidden
costs to your users’ interactions (conversion cost etc..). That’s why we
will have a freemium token system based protocol, where it will be
possible to use the protocol without tokens, but users will be
incentivised to use it. We will go in depth in Dether’s token system in
further articles, but it aims with multiple mechanisms to incentive
everyone in the app, without creating friction for new users.

For
more information about the use of the ÐTR token, you can find all the
explanations related to our token model in Dether’s whitepaper: http://whitepaper.dether.io

3/ Why have you chosen to use a PWA (progressive web app) instead of a native app?

We
have chosen to use a PWA because it facilitates a lot of things. First,
you don’t have to go through any AppStore validation. And currently,
for a crypto-related mobile app, it can be challenging to be validated
by the AppStore.

Also
your app is platform agnostic. A progressive app may run normally like a
website, but we chose to encourage people to add it on their phone home
screen, to recreate the mobile experience. So we put in place a system
where we detect if the users are using their browser and show them a
very simple installation process to follow. And once we detect that the
app is running through the home screen link, we launch the real app.
Thus, we recreate a mobile app experience, with an easy version
management, and AppStore censorship resistant.

So
once installed, it’s easy for a user to come back to the app instead of
relaunching the app. As a javascript and mobile app community member,
we are already seeing this switch in mentality of thinking that this
kind of mobile app will become a more standard way of doing things,
going forward.

As
a result, in less than a month, more than 3.000 people all over the
world have installed Dether on their mobile phone and used it.

4/ Do you really have no back-end?

Yes,
the alpha runs without any back-end, as we just need some external API,
like mapbox for the map, and our own Ethereum provider. That’s it! For
the rest, it’s just web3 to Ethereum node communication. This
architecture has some drawbacks: loading a lot of data from an Ethereum
node, can be a struggle, so for example, in the first version of alpha,
we were loading all the ether sellers on the map.

Ether sellers located on the Dether map

But
as more and more ether sellers were added, it’s too long to handle this
data. Now, we load only the ether sellers from the country where you
are. And for the first mainnet beta version, we will load only the
sellers from your postal code and the ones closest to you.

5/ How do you handle a user’s private key?

We
create the mnemonic phrase with entropy generated by the user’s phone
move, and generate one private key. Once created, we encrypt it all with
the password provided by the user and store it in the local storage of
the app.

For
every transaction in the app, we decrypt the private key with the
password provided by the user to sign the transaction (but never keep
the private key in memory), and broadcast the signed transaction through
our Ethereum node.

This way, the private key is never stored decrypted in the system, and it never leaves the user’s device.

6/ Do you plan to add other cryptocurrencies?

We
will add ERC20 tokens in Dether’s future version. It will be possible
for users to buy and sell token using cash anywhere in the world. For
other cryptocurrency, we are looking for solutions to bridge the
Ethereum ecosystem and other cryptocurrency.

Rootstock (RSK) <> Dether @Devcon3

For
now, we are thinking about Cosmos, which will be soon available, and
Rootstock (RSK) which will be an EVM side chain to Bitcoin. Our main
concern about that is that layer should be pegged in some way with our
token. And it’s definitely something we would like to add for 2018.

Next article to be published in the Dether Development Transparency Series: “Introducing Dether.js”

< LET’S GET IN TOUCH >

Presenting the Dether team

Team members talk about why they all jumped into this ambitious adventure and their vision for the future of Dether

How do you think Dether will help people?

When
I first started thinking about Dether, I was always trying to think of
the potential users behind it, and whether or not they are familiar with
blockchain technology. And the more time passes, the more I strongly
believe that Dether will help the masses to easily get familiar with
cryptocurrency and blockchain, without prior knowledge about it.

Personally,
I pay close attention to user experience when building Dether. If we
really want Ethereum and decentralized applications to go mainstream,
then anyone should be able to use Dether to buy and sell Ether. That’s
the reason why we decided to have a smooth user experience with a
pleasant user interface. And it should be the same for every
decentralized application.

When
building a decentralized application (Dapp), the main challenge for
teams is to make your users actually use blockchain technology without
even noticing it.

Hamid B.

People
need a simple and universal way to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, no
matter where they are in the world. Today, there are no standards, like
ATMs, present in all countries. That’s what we want to build with
Dether, and thanks to the characteristics of cryptocurrencies, and to
the rate of penetration of mobile phones in our lives, one just needs to
have a phone and cash, and an application to connect everyone.

Mehdi A.

What are the key tips to keep a team motivated towards the same vision?

I think that the challenge behind Dether’s mission to break barriers to Ethereum
mass adoption keeps us all super motivated and excited about what we
are building. Everyone in the team has experienced a cryptocurrency
cash-in or cash-out problem at a moment in our life, whether it was for
us, for a friend, or for a relative. It shaped our vision and our
ambition to build a working alpha before the token sale so that our
community members can actually have a good visibility on Dether, instead
of just words on a whitepaper.

We
also took time to install an entrepreneurship culture in the team and
it has also led every member to be a real asset. The fact that everyone
can propose new ideas, quickly test them and mesure them to know if an
idea is a success or not keeps everyone motivated towards an ambitious
mission.

Last,
but not least, it’s important to have diversity in the team. When we
look at the team members’ backgrounds, it’s so interesting to see how we
all have different backgrounds in the team: we have a former break
dancer, a former McDonald’s employee, a former Disneyland performer, a
former Uber driver, a former SFR mobile phone salesperson, and so on.
And this diversity brings innovation and keeps everyone on the track
towards the same mission.

Hamid B.

We
are lucky to be a team of friends sharing the same vision around a
project. Thanks to this, things are done very naturally, and everyone
can use their skills to push the project forward. It is this strength
that characterizes us and without this alchemy, we would not be where we
are today.

Mehdi A.

Why did you join Dether, and what do you hope to achieve?

Before Dether,
I worked with Mehdi and Hamid on a project as a Full Stack JS/Ethereum
developer. And since I was already very interested in the Ethereum
blockchain, I didn’t hesitate once when they asked me to work on Dether.
Moreover, the entrepreneurial aspect and technical innovation are
factors of great importance to me.

On the technical side, my background as a web developer helped me to adapt to Solidity (the development language of the smart-contracts on the blockchain Ethereum).
As a developer, what stimulates me is to develop something today and
develop something totally different the next day — I never want to have a
routine! The Ethereum Blockchain is still in its infancy, so we have to
constantly create, innovate, and look for the most efficient way to
interact with it using the libs available. From this point of view, Devcon3
has shown that the Ethereum community is doing a tremendous job of
providing us with effective tools to improve our productivity.

The Dether Alpha release
was a real success, the community gave us a lot of positive feedback
about the features, the design etc… It’s a real pride for us to see that
people appreciate our work and to see our application live on testnet,
it’s proof that the hours and nights of work weren’t in vain.

But
this is just the beginning… The next big challenge we are going to face
is to release the app on Mainnet. This important step in the life of a
Dapp is crucial and will confront us with the real problems encountered
by users who trust the Dether app
and the Ethereum blockchain. The security aspect is going to be a great
challenge on which we have already started to work, and which we are
constantly improving.

Ishak L.

What are your thoughts on the Ethereum community?

I
think the people involved in blockchain are people who are really
engaged to change the world, interested in new technologies and want to
emancipate themselves from the current monetary system. This
technological evolution opens the door to a new world in which everyone
wants to participate become the pioneers of this new system.

It
is in this context that I became interested in the Ethereum blockchain.
The fact that we can decentralize all kinds of applications opens up
huge and interesting perspectives. For my part, Dether is the missing link for the democratization of crypto to become accessible to all.

I
also find that the visual identities of the Ethereum ecosystem projects
have nothing to envy regarding the projects outside the blockchain.
There is a real effervescence with all these projects and concepts that
are created, and each one tries to develop a real and original identity.
Through Dether, I’m lucky enough to be able to fully blossom in a
project where I can do what I want, creatively speaking.

Romain H.

I
think that the Ethereum community is a dynamic and constantly growing
community, as proof, the latest major event, Devcon3 has brought
together people from all over the world to discuss, exchange on
innovative projects, and reflect on how to break down barriers to allow
everyone to access blockchain technology.

The Dether Alpha release has
been positively perceived by the community, and we have exchanged with
potential future partners whose applications are complementary to
Dether. Some of them build reputation systems, others build identity
systems, and some come up with voting or other forms of governance.
Everyone has understood that to help the growth of the blockchain
ecosystem, we must create synergies in order to develop real
interoperability (when it is possible) between the different products on
the market. It is in this vision that Dether is part of this process,
and we are working very hard on that.

Mamad B.

We
hope this article has given you a little more insight into the overall
vision of the Dether project team. We will soon publish a more in-depth
individual interview of each member.

Recently
we had to deal with an unexpected situation… We received several
questions about the Dether’s token aspect of the project:

“Hello, I bought DTR tokens but haven’t received them in my wallet yet?”

or even…

“Hello, I have DTR tokens, can you tell me when you will be listed on BITTREX?”

Quite
strange… since our token sale has not yet taken place! After a bit of
investigation, we discovered that the token name “DTR” already exists!
And yes, this name is used by another project. As the blockchain
ecosystem is boiling with new ideas, projects are created every day, and
it was to be expected that this kind of situation would happen. It’s
why we logically decided to change the token’s name! This was followed
by brainstorming with the whole team.

Lots of questions came up:

“What do we do?”
“How many letters should we use? Three or four?”

We came up with proposals for the new name too:

“DTH?!”
“DETHR sounds good too?”
“DTHR is not bad, right?”
“What do you think of ‘DETR’?”

Roman,
Dether’s UX/UI Designer, had the first idea of consulting our community
through a survey. Who better to determine what will be the token name
will be than the community that supports the Dether project? From this
survey came out the name DTH and it’s the one we chose!

You know, the token’s name is part of project’s identity ,
admittedly it is not the most important but it is essential to have a
name easy to remember and easy recognize, everyone’s okay with that, we
think…

So, if we tell you:

BODHI… XPLAY… BCAP… or BOLENUM?

Or if we show you this logo:

Or this logo:

Or this one :

It’s not easy to know what project this token name is for or what project this logo belongs to?!

That’s where Ishak, Dether’s full stack JS developer, got the second idea…

Why not create a game where people should associate the token’s name with the right logo?

That’s how ToTheMoon was born!

HOW TO PLAY ?

It’s
very simple: a crypto logo will be displayed on the screen, and you
have 3 seconds to select its name. But every time you make a mistake,
you’ll have to start again!

You can share your score and challenge people in the crypto community!